Bad Samaritans

Way back in my olden days I remember something in psych on how the effects of Mob changes the mentality of people. If someone sees you on the road hurt chances are you'll get help. If someone sees you hurt in a mob the people assume it's someone else is going to help and the result is your chances of getting help is much worse.

This, of course, doesn't justify non-care but it may help understand why and it happens.
 
When they train you for first aid or CPR, you're supposed to 1) tend to the victim and 2) call 911. Of course, if there's other people around, it's best to get one of them to call 911 for you so you can focus on the victim. However, you should never yell out "Someone call an ambulance" because there's a good chance everyone will assume someone else will make the call and the call will never happen. They instead recommend you single out a person, point to them and instruct them to call 911. That suddenly places the expectation of the entire group of people on that one person to make the call - greatly increasing the chances that the call will be made. It's really just good leadership in practice, but not everyone is a natural leader. In fact, most people aren't and when in larger groups are more likely to just follow. But leadership skills can be taught and learned. But natural leaders tend to lead which ever way they wish, so good leadership skills under communist China were probably rewarded mostly with long jail sentences.
 
Culture makes a difference
Christianity puts emphasis on caring for your fellow man, something that is ingrained in Western Culture
China is officially Communist Atheist which is amoral, and Confucianism only emphasizes caring for direct relatives
 
metalman said:
Culture makes a difference
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You would like to think so - you just want to think that you are better than those people you saw in the video and yet studies show it ain't so. Humans are cooperative but they don't like to get involved in the problems of strangers, generally.

Just think of all the Christians who think that helping the poor is a terrible thing to do, that supporting the sick is a business, not a human duty, that the problem with the afflicted is not that they had bad luck but that they have somehow sinned.
 
Religions come and go, culture stays the same. Much of what is Christianity today existed in other forms before that. More noticeable however is that people of the same religion but of different cultures can have very different values. If you allow me to say all Christians are of the same religion, then I'd say that Texan Christians would probably not find many things to agree with Russian Christians. There may be cultural differences between people, but religion is probably not the cause. At best, it is a reflection.
 
metalman said:
Culture makes a difference
Christianity puts emphasis on caring for your fellow man, something that is ingrained in Western Culture
China is officially Communist Atheist which is amoral, and Confucianism only emphasizes caring for direct relatives
Click to expand...

This is very true on different levels and can be taken a step further. Of course it is not a guarantee, but overall as a rule of thumb it is true. I have seen it first hand when it comes to car accidents. In South Florida where the population on a percentage basis tends to be more godless democrats, it is less likely people will stop to help you if you have been injured in an accident. As a matter of fact, you have to be very careful crossing the street or even sitting at a bus stop. Drivers have a tendency to aim at you and push the accelerator. When we moved to Northern Alabama briefly and my wife had that terrible accident, dozens of people stopped to help and we very kind. They stayed until the scene was completely cleared. Northern Alabama on average has more traditional values with mainly a church going population.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Just think of all the Christians who think that helping the poor is a terrible thing to do, that supporting the sick is a business, not a human duty, that the problem with the afflicted is not that they had bad luck but that they have somehow sinned.
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What parallel universe are you talking about??
 
I find the bigger the city, the higher the population, the more tourism, the less personable people are likely to be (although I find Toronto to be a bit of an anomaly here, a big city but still quite friendly). Small towns are obviously gonna be more personable. Don't think religion factors into that, at least not directly.
 
Glaucus said:
I find the bigger the city, the higher the population, the more tourism, the less personable people are likely to be (although I find Toronto to be a bit of an anomaly here, a big city but still quite friendly). Small towns are obviously gonna be more personable. Don't think religion factors into that, at least not directly.
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It isn't just religion for sure. It is a combination of factors in a traditional small town. Religion does play a part in these communities though. In small religious communities you find less of the extremely materialism and sense of entitlement you find bigger, mostly godless large cities.
 
Ok, so let me ask you then; do you think you'd find less hospitality in a small town in China? And you can pretend to be Chinese when answering the question (and by that I mean, ignore the fact that you'd stick out like a sore thumb and be unable to communicate).
 
Glaucus said:
Ok, so let me ask you then; do you think you'd find less hospitality in a small town in China? And you can pretend to be Chinese when answering the question (and by that I mean, ignore the fact that you'd stick out like a sore thumb and be unable to communicate).
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I honestly have no idea the culture in small Chinese communities. I know how it is portrayed in movies, but I have never been there. I also understand the small communities in China are dying out as more Chinese move to the cities for a modern way of life, where they have their own problems with materialism and such. If you are implying there is no religion in rural china, AFAIK you would be wrong. I would also guess small traditional communities in China are probably more hospitable than the big cities.
 
Glaucus said:
I find the bigger the city, the higher the population, the more tourism, the less personable people are likely to be (although I find Toronto to be a bit of an anomaly here, a big city but still quite friendly). Small towns are obviously gonna be more personable. Don't think religion factors into that, at least not directly.
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You also have to consider China went through Mao's cultural revolution of purges and mass starvation, and before that a civil war. So that is also part of Chinese culture, which adds to the dehumanizing of suffering.
 
This was a tragic story, one that really made me wonder how people could be so callous as to ignore anyone, let alone a small child, lying in a road after a hit and run incident.

That said, I think there's too much generalization going on in this thread. According to the various reports I read, the incident has triggered a national outcry in China. I don't think it's remotely fair to suggest that the entire nation is as desensitized or indifferent as the people that walked on by.
 
conflicting stories about being alive or dead

Yue Yue, the 2-year-old girl who was run over by two vehicles in Foshan, Guangdong province last week, remained close to brain dead

A lawyer association will be set up as part of the Guangdong Law Society, which will study the practice of refusing to help dying people and push for legislation, said Zhu Yongping, a well-known lawyer at Datong Law Firm in Guangzhou.
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The girl, known as Yue Yue, died yesterday

Yangcheng Evening News quoted the man who first struck Yue Yue as saying, "If it was you who hit someone, you'd run too. You can see the little girl, looking around when she walked. If she walked properly, how could I hit her?" In response, one user of Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblog wrote, "This society is seriously ill. Even cats and dogs shouldn't be treated so heartlessly."
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not rendering aid in china seems to be a common occurrence
 
metalman said:
not rendering aid in china seems to be a common occurrence
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Well, they are still a fairly poor country throughout most parts having only recently become industrialized. People in those sorts of societies are generally more cavalier about death and they see more of it. As people get more affluent they tend to become more concerned with safety as the number of other things that kill you decline. Think back to the 70s when cars still didn't come with seat belts, babies didn't have special seats and were held by their mums in the front seat. During the summer holidays when I was 11, I would leave the house at dawn and come back for supper and we didn't have cell phones to call home with. Could you let your kids do that today?

Go down to Mexico and see the kids all being carried around in the beds of trucks because the grandparents have seniority and sit in the cab. It's scary following them down some of those bad roads and they'll hit a pothole and half the time someone nearly falls out and I'm sure sometimes someone does.

When I was in Malaysia about 10 years ago the government was waking up to the enormous carnage on the roads and were talking about regulating all the scooters (that regularly carried 3 people, or one person and a stupid sized load). Of course, people don't like meddling governments telling them what to do with their own scooters!!

Yup, the footage above is pretty harsh but would the kid be wandering around in the street over here? They'd probably be on a leash but times have changed and China will too. Nonetheless, what if it wasn't a toddler? Think of all the times you've walked past a homeless person in a doorway on a freezing cold night, or seen a junky nod out behind a dumpster and just looked away and kept on walking. If you stop to get involved it could be hours of your day gone. Who has that sort of time?
 
I think there are many factors here. First of all, this is probably not the first time a pedestrian was hit by a vehicle in China. The Chinese are treating this lack of care as a unique thing though, meaning, it probably is. Metalman's response about Christianity implies that he believes that if the Chinese were Christian this could not have happened as it did, and I seriously doubt that. I think Fluffy's video explanation is far more plausible - although it does contain one curious item: a crucifix in the kitchen. Now how did that get there Fluffy? ;)
 
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